


thank you for coming home

by gsparkle



Series: fast forward [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Mornings, Nights - Freeform, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-15 21:57:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14798709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gsparkle/pseuds/gsparkle
Summary: Act one is the farce that is couch cushions on the floor, act two the interlude in the middle of the night. Act three is this morning, is pale May sunshine on Steve’s golden unkempt hair, is the creases Bucky can’t help but reach to rub off Steve’s drawn face.





	thank you for coming home

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: We slept in the same bed for space reasons but now we’re just waking up and there’s something about your bleary eyes and mussed hair
> 
> title: gold, spandau ballet

Why he bothers to put the couch cushions down on the floor, he’ll never know. Every time, Steve insists that he’ll be fine under the one thin blanket he’ll deign to let Bucky drape over him, and every time, he ends up shivering at 3 AM, teeth chattering up a racket.

This time it’s early May and spring still hasn’t shaken the trees of their winter. There’s a hard wind coming from the bay that knocks on Bucky’s window and slips through the broken sill, chilling the floorboards and the cushions Steve sleeps fitfully upon, curled up like the spiral shells Bucky saw at the Museum of Natural History. It’s only a matter of time until Steve trembles himself awake, so Bucky waits, cataloguing the parts and pieces of his best friend and trying to figure out how the hell he’s gotten so simultaneously lucky and cursed.

He knows he is cursed for the following reasons: Steve’s talked him into more bar fights than he cares to remember; they’re banned from Central Park Zoo because Steve started a protest about animal rights; he’s never gotten a clear answer on why Steve can’t ever just  _ stay calm _ and talk his problems out instead of swinging tiny, useless fists; Steve makes the worst cup of coffee in the entire borough and Bucky has to pretend it’s delicious so that Steve will smile; and worst of all, Steve is so little and scrawny and permanently cough-wracked that his death is inevitable, far before his time, far before Bucky will ever be ready.

But all these reasons are also why he is lucky, because for all that Steve’s the stupidest punk Bucky’s ever had the displeasure to chase endlessly after, he’s also good, so good that he shines like the saints on the wall at church. Bucky sometimes wonders if Steve’s health troubles stem from the fact that his heart is so big and always churning so furiously at the injustices of the world that the rest of his little body can’t keep up. He’s lucky because he gets to see Steve smile when his sketch comes out just right, an expression so content and bright and quietly joyful that nobody else gets to see. He’s lucky he gets to be Steve’s best friend, even though that role will eventually require him to be the one to pick out a coffin instead of a suit and scrape together enough money for a gravestone instead of a stag party.

It’s only a few minutes more until Steve’s small, sleep-rough voice crests over the edge of the bed. “Buck, you awake?” he whispers. He does this every time, as if there will ever come a time when Bucky’s not tuned into his scattered breathing, as if there will ever be a moment when Bucky isn’t worried that this will be the night Steve doesn’t see the end of.

“C’mon up,” Bucky says, holding up his blanket so Steve can shuffle into bed.  _ “Jesus _ , Stevie,” he adds when Steve shoves his icy feet between Bucky’s calves and his frozen nose to his warm chest. The only response he gets is a snuffle as Steve burrows in, stealing all of Bucky’s heat as they both drift off to sleep.

The morning is his favorite and least favorite part of this play, the third act in the tragedy Bucky likes to call  _ An Idiot in Love. _ Act one is the farce that is couch cushions on the floor, act two the interlude in the middle of the night. Act three is this morning, is pale May sunshine on Steve’s golden unkempt hair, is the creases Bucky can’t help but reach to rub off Steve’s drawn face. Act three is longing for things he can’t ever have, even if he lives one hundred years.

Steve stirs, clears his throat, looks up at Bucky with those blue eyes wider than the ocean, and on this day in May, Bucky can’t take it anymore. He’s just a human man, and not even a good one like Steve, and even though every Sunday he sits in church next to his ma and prays to be delivered from temptation, he can’t and won’t ever believe that loving Steve Rogers is anything other than a god-given miracle. So on this May morning, under the privacy of his blankets and the early morning sun, Bucky pats down the flyaways of Steve’s fine hair and presses a crooked kiss in the corner of his sleep-soft mouth. 

And look, Bucky’s kissed his fair share of girls and even a handful of guys down behind the soda fountain, but none of them have Steve’s full lower lip or asthmatic gasp, and none of them are here in his bed tangling their too-skinny legs with his. None of them look up at him through long, delicate eyelashes, laugh breathlessly, and say, “Jesus, Buck, you could do a lot better than a shrimp like me.”

“No way,” Bucky says, “You’re the one who could do better.” Steve rolls his eyes, but he kisses Bucky again, traces his lips with his tongue, and pulls the blanket up to shield their faces from the sun.


End file.
